Guns and the Left’s Unfailing Insistence on Irrational Thought

This morning I was reading an article from a Maine Online publication about how the Legislature is going to consider a bill that would make it impossible for a convicted felon to own a muzzle-loading weapon, i.e. black powder gun. As I understand the current law, the Federal Government does not recognize a muzzle-loading gun as an official weapon. In Maine, where it is generally unlawful for a convicted felon to own even a muzzle-loading gun, he or she can make application to the State’s Commissioner of Public Safety for an exemption to that prohibition.

The argument in favor of the new proposed law, as presented by this newspaper, is a poor one and certainly exemplifies the irrational thoughts of leftist progressives. I’m not here to argue whether this law is good or bad, right or wrong, and whether or not a muzzle-loading gun is or is not a weapon. I’m here to expose the irrational thought that drives emotions when it comes to making decisions – such as the banning of guns or the making of irrational and useless laws.

This newspaper uses as the foundation of it’s argument is an event that happened in Maine 10 years ago, when a hunter, hunting with a muzzle-loading rifle, mistook his target and shot and killed a woman in the field behind her house. It was a tragic event. Maine law is very strict about the responsibility of the hunter to identify the target. Such was not the case here and it ended in unnecessary tragedy.

The hunter was not a “dangerous felon.” As a matter of fact he wasn’t even a felon. If memory serves me, the man had no criminal record and was a decent man within his community. His crime? Poor judgement and decision making. To err is human.

So, to a rational thinker, would this proposed new law, had it been in effect at the time, have prevented the death of an innocent young woman? Of course not.

However, under present law, the convicted felon can petition the Commissioner of Public Safety to allow an exemption of the state’s ban against felons owning a muzzle-loading gun. Should this felon be granted an exemption? I dunno, however, can any of us make that determination without knowing what the guidelines and requirements are that must be met before the Commissioner can permit such an exemption? Is this a clear cut case of forever banning this man from ever owning a gun? You’ll have to decide that. Forever is a long time. How long should he be punished?

The point here is that the proposed law is nonsense. It’s nonsense because it is stating in outright fashion that when the State of Maine made it’s current law allowing for exemptions, those making the law didn’t know what they were doing and that the process is flawed so that “dangerous felons” can have easy access to a gun.

Another question to ask is, how many exemptions have been granted by the Commissioner of Public Safety and how many, if there are any, of those exemptions resulted in crime committed with a muzzle-loading gun? A criminal is a criminal and criminals most often are criminals because they had total disregard of laws, such as the one being proposed.

Unless there is ample proof that the system in place is allowing for violent crimes that might have been prevented, this proposal is nothing more than Leftist piling on of totalitarian repression – emotional clap-trap.